Monday, November 25, 2013

If someone came to you and said they had
a story that would make you believe in God, you would listen wouldn’t you. That’s the setup for the book and movie Life
of Pi.

Life
of Pi is another book made into movie.
The book was written by Yann Martel and it’s a book for which he won
numerous literary honors. I read the
book about 5 years ago and I loved it.
So I was excited when I saw that a movie was being made about it. The movie came out around this time last year
and won 4 Academy awards. Like most book
to movie adaptations, the book is better.
However, they did an incredible bringing the book to the big
screen. This is one of the best book to
movie adaptations that I have seen.

The story is about a boy named Pi
who grows up in India and as a young teenager claims to be a Hindu, Christian
and Muslim all at the same time. Pi’s
father owns a zoo but financially things are hard. So the father sells the zoo and they are
shipping the animals to Canada on a Japanese Cargo ship which sinks and Pi
finds himself on a life boat with a Hyena, Orangutan, Zebra and Bengal
Tiger. As you can probably imagine it
comes down to two survivors: Pi and the Tiger who is named Richard Parker.

The story is told from the
perspective of a writer who had discovered from a family member that Pi had a
story that would “make him believe in God.”
So as the older Pi tells his story to this author, the book and movie
flashback to what was actually taking place.
Eventually Pi washes up on the shores of Mexico, 227 days after the ship
sank and recounts 2 versions of the story to the Japanese Owners of the boat
who want to know what happened to their boat. Pi offers the same facts but with
two different interpretations.

In the first version, Pi is the sole
human survivor on a lifeboat with a zebra, hyena, orangutan and a huge Bengal
tiger called Mr. Parker. The second has no animals and is far more brutal. One
requires suspension of disbelief; the other is “reasonable”. When they ask him which one is true he asks
them which one is better? They tell him
which one they think is better and Pi says “so it is with God.” Which leaves the audience and the reader wide
open to interpret the message the author intended.

You have to be prepared to choose to
walk away from the “reasonable” interpretation to accept the better story. To have faith. In the film, Pi retells the story and
convinces two skeptics to overcome one of the largest barriers to faith –
believing in the unbelievable. One of those characters does claim in the end
that he does believe in God.

So the idea with the movie is that
believing in God is purposeful and beautiful and and a better story whether
it’s true or not…it’s not the point…the point is to have faith in something
that you can’t prove but that offers something that human beings need: like
hope, like love, like purpose and meaning.
The author is not so worried about whether or not a religion is true…but
whether or not religion offers humanity a better story of how to live life.

So while I could tell you all day long
that that there are enough extra-biblical texts, literature outside of the text
of the Bible, that points to the historicity of the life, death and yes resurrection
of Jesus Christ, I can’t prove it to you.
I could tell you that the one piece of data that keeps me believing in
Christianity on a rational , fact based level is the actions of the disciples
before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus gets arrested his disciples are
hiding behind locked doors. They are
worried and scared doing what they can to disassociate themselves with Jesus
because they don’t want to be arrested either.
After the resurrection all of a sudden these same disciples who were
scared and worried and hiding because they feared for their lives…now all of a
sudden they are willing to die because of their faith. Something as big and supernatural as the
resurrection of Jesus Christ would have had to have happened for them to do a
total 180 and not worry about their own lives.
So I believe that Jesus is who he said he was and that there is some
historical data that backs that up.
However, I could never prove the resurrection to anyone without a shadow
of a doubt.

I want to explore the question
that’s asked in Life of Pi…is the better story to believe in God or not believe
in God. Just for a few minutes let’s not
worry about whether or not the story is true…let’s look at it through the lens
of which story is better: a God or no God?

At let me tell you, I don’t ever
remember a time when I didn’t believe in God…so this is really hard for me to
do. But here’s what I imagine would be
my thoughts and questions if I did live life believing that God does not
exist.

If there is no God then it stands to
reason that everything in creation is by natural evolution apart from
intelligent design. So that I could
still enjoy the beauty of creation but I would wonder about the purpose of
creation. My question would be does creation
have meaning? One of my favorite books
is called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.
The tagline is “Nonreligious thoughts on Christian Spirituality.” It’s an awesome and easy read that was made
into a movie in 2012. In the movie the
main character Don is attending a debate about whether or not God exists. He asks the atheist who is debating there is
no God about meaning. The man says “The
universe doesn't owe us meaning, son. If you want meaning, I suggest you try a
dictionary.” If there is no God it is
hard to find meaning, to find purpose.
Love can be a purpose…but are we ourselves the source of that love? Doing good things can give us purpose, but
isn’t there something more to this life than just doing good? Do we find ultimate purpose and meaning in
love and in doing good things in and of themselves.

I believe in God and find myself
thinking that there is more to this life than what I am currently experiencing,
I think that angst and search for meaning and purpose would be hyped up even
more if I didn’t believe in God.

Another thing about this is that I
think it takes more faith to believe God does not exist than it does to believe
that God does exist. For example let’s
say you are invited to someone’s house for dinner. You enter the dining room and laid before you
is a beautiful, aromatic spread of food.
Does it take more faith to believe that no one prepared that food or that
someone prepared that food? You didn’t
actually see anyone making the food and putting it on the table so how do you
know someone actually made it? What if a
small tornado came through the kitchen and dining room and what formed is what
is found on the table? That takes more
faith than the simple idea that whoever invited you to dinner actually took the
time to make the food and put it on the table for you to enjoy.

Which is the better story…that
someone prepared the food for you to enjoy or that it came about randomly? Which story is more meaningful? Now I know that there are problems with that
analogy, but it’s just an analogy.

My point is this: whatever we
believe, whether in something or in nothing, whatever we choose will take
faith. Whatever we believe will lead to
unanswered and unanswerable questions.
Whatever we choose to believe or not believe will require us to be okay
with mystery. Whatever we choose to
believe will shape our values and the way we live our lives. Whether Christianity is true or not, I think
it is a better story.

The story that there is a God who
loves us enough to send his only son as a demonstration of His love is a beautiful
story that gives meaning and purpose to life.
The idea that the Holy Spirit is present with us in the midst of a
cancer diagnoses or an unwanted divorce …that’s a better story. The solidarity that God has with his creation
because he chose to become one of us…he doesn’t just think he knows what it
means to suffer…he became one of us and suffered just like us and he knows what
it means to suffer and that’s why one day he’s going to make everything
right…that’s the better story. That when
we lose a loved one unexpectedly we can trust that we have a God who knows and
understands grief and doesn’t take the grief away, but see’s us through so that
we come to the other side of those hard and intense emotions with softer heart for others who have lost a loved
one. That’s the better story.

I
want to read John 1:1-18. I’m not going
to teach this text this morning, I’m sure a time will come when I do dig in and
really teach what John is saying in these words. But this morning, I want you to rest and
relax and let these words sink in as something beautiful and meaningful and
good. I want these words to sink in this
morning as the better story. As
something you just receive as you hear them.
Something good and life-giving and restoring to your soul. Will you hear the word. Read
John 1:1-18:

The Hunger Games is a three book series written by
Suzanne Collins about a girl named Katniss Everdeen (I love her name) and her
struggle to survive in a future world, in a post-apocalyptic world set in North
America but now called Panem.At some
point, war and environmental disaster destroyed the United States, and out of
the remnants grew the new country of Panem. The nation consists of a wealthy
Capitol city, located in the Rocky Mountain region, with 12 poorer districts
surrounding it. There was at one time a 13th district, but it supposedly was
destroyed by the Capitol during a rebellion some 75 years prior to the events
in the books.Panem is ruled by the
Capitol in a totalitarian regime. The Capitol asserts complete control over the
12 districts, forcing the people there to abide by strict rules and work in
industries that supply the needs of the Capitol.It’s an oppressive situation for those living
in the 12 districts. Those fortunateenough to live in the Capitol live in luxury and excessiveness.They are overconsumers…so much so that many
of the people are not satisfied with their human beauty, but resort to coloring
their skin and disfiguring their bodies.

The
title The Hunger Games comes from one of the ways the Capitol exerts its
control over the districts. Each year
two children, one male and one female 12-18 years old, are chosen by lottery as
“tributes” (that’s what they are called) to participate in, or more accurately,
be sacrificed in, a reality TV show that where these children are forced to
fight to the death. And the last one
remaining wins that year’s Hunger Games and becomes a celebrity. All citizens in Panem are required to watch
the games. The Capitol set up the games
as retribution for a failed rebellion against the Capitol’s rule. It’s a way to control the citizens and remind
them of who has the power.

We
first meet Katniss on reaping day, the day when the children are chosen from
the districts to compete in the Hunger Games. When her younger sister Prim's
name is drawn in the District 12 reaping, Katniss volunteers to take her place
in the arena. Joining her from District 12 is Peeta Mellark, the baker's son
who had once saved Katniss' life by giving her bread when she was desperately
hungry. With their mentor Haymitch Abernathy, the solitary District 12 victor
from a past Hunger Games, they are taken to the Capitol for complete makeovers,
games training and to be paraded in front of the adoring Capitol crowds eager
to see them get slaughtered.

One
thing we learn about Katniss is that before her father died in a mining
accident, he taught her how to hunt in the woods, which was forbidden by the
Capitol who use trained policemen to make sure that their rules are followed,
these police are ironically called “Peacekeepers.” Katniss would sneak off in the woods and hunt
with a bow and arrow to provide for her family and for some others in the
District 12. Just a side note, much of
the film was shot in Shelby, Asheville and Concord, NC. The sunshine club
actually took a trip to see where District 12 was shot, it was neat.

Katniss proves to be a
formidable tribute in the Hunger Games. She knows how to hunt and how to
survive in the woods. And the reason the games are called the Hunger Games is
because if a child isn’t killed by another contestant then they will probably
starve or thirst to death. The setting of the Hunger Games is a huge arena
where the games could last for days and days and days.

Through a series of
events and really one subversive act of mutual sacrifice, Katniss and Peeta
both win the 74th Hunger Games. By having two victors they have changed the
rules. Katniss becomes a symbol of hope for all the other districts and she
doesn’t even realize it right away.

The
second novel Catching Fire begins with the couple’s Victory Tour six months
after they are named champions. The ruthless government of Panem is not pleased
with the admiration the crowds show for Katniss and Peeta . The President fears
that other people under oppression will follow the couple’s example and defy
the government. The couple must fight again in the 75th Hunger Games. The
second book ends, as Katniss and her allies unleash a revolution, another
rebellion against society’s corrupt rulers, against the Capitol and especially
the president.

In Mockingjay, the
final book of the trilogy, Katniss becomes the face of a nationwide rebellion.
At the end of the book, after many twists and turns, Katniss secures freedom
for her people. After she experiences great personal loss and has been through
just terrible, The Hunger Games have ended and the oppressive regime that was
in power is destroyed. So as dark as it
is, it ends well.

Again, like last week
with How to Train your dragon, there are several themes found in the Bible that
I could use this movie as a platform to explore. There’s the theme of love and sacrifice (of
course there’s a love triangle going on in the book, you can’t a Young Adult
book without that right, but there is the theme of sacrificial love as well),
there’s the theme of how to have hope when you are under oppression, there’s
the theme of grief and loss, there’s the theme of survival and the importance
of family and friends. There’s the theme
of desenzitation towards violence and the role of entertainment in our
lives. There’s the theme of excess and
scarcity, having enough resources to feed all people in Panem, yet some people
are starving and some are living in ridiculous luxury and excess.

Hopefully you can
already see some of the parallels with modern society and hopefully you can see
how some of these themes are important to God and should be important to
us. I want us to look at the theme of
thirst and hunger. Afterall, it’s title
is the Hunger Games and the Bible has quite a bit to say regarding thirst and
hunger.

There are two types of
thirst and hunger in the Bible. There’s the literally thirst and hunger that
was a matter of physical life or death. We tend to forget that the entire Bible
is set in a time when they did not have indoor or outdoor plumbing. The people of the Bible, all of them, could
not just turn on a faucet for water. So
if you were thirsty and you had run out of water that you had gathered from the
rain or from the river or from the lake, if your family is out of water, you
have to walk miles to get the water and bring it back. And what happens if you don’t make it back in
time? So when we think of being thirsty,
it is not a thirsty like, oh I would like some water because I’m thirsty, it
was more like, if I don’t get a drink of water today I will die. It was a
matter of life and death.

In Jesus’ day, poverty was not like what it is
today. There were no social institutions, or local soup kitchens or warm places
to stay overnight, people that were poor, had no options except to beg if you
were a man or be a prostitute if you were a woman. It was sell yourself or die. And that’s why Jesus talked so strongly about
feeding the hungry and giving water to the thirsty, those who needed were in
poverty and had no way to live.

So
we come to a parable Jesus is telling like in Matthew 25 and we see how
important feeding the hungry and giving water to the thirsty is: Read 34-46.
The assumption Jesus is making in these verses is that if you are truly my
disciple, this is what it looks like, feeding the hungry and giving water to
the thirsty and clothing the naked.
Because in this culture, it was literally a matter of life and
death. The only options for survival was
begging or prostitution, that was it. While poverty looks different today then
it did back then our country, we are still called to be generous and selfless
and helpful and we are still called to be a blessing to people who aren’t as
fortunate as we are. When I read these
verses I am convicted, I hope you are too.

That’s
the literal, physical thirst and hunger. Lets talk about the spiritual thirst
and hunger. When is the last time you thirsted for God the way you do when you
are thirsty for water? When is the last time you sought God with the same conviction
you seek food for your family if you and the ones you loved were starving?
Jesus said in John 6:32-35. The psalmist wrote in 42:1-2. Jesus said in Matthew
5:6. When is the last time you took time to seek God because you were hungry
and thirsty for Him? If you don’t think you have a spiritual hunger and thirst
for God, try living without him. Try it, say no and see how your life turns
out. See how your eternity turns out. God doesn’t force himself on anyone, yet,
he has placed within each of us a spiritual hunger that only He can
fulfill…both on this earth and for all eternity.

There’s
a part in the book towards the beginning of the first Hunger Games that Katniss
is in and she has gotten far into the woods but she’s thirsty. And she knows if she doesn’t find water soon
that she will die of dehydration. And so
she wonders why her mentor, her trainer, Haymitch hasn’t sent her any
water. Because he can do that...he could
pay the people who run the Hunger Games to send her a bottle of water from the sky. But he doesn’t. And at this point she is so dehydrated that
she is crawling and feeling dizzy and she knows the symptoms. And she wonders is my mentor, the one that is
supposed to be helping me, is he going to just let me die. Then she realizes that the reason he’s not
sending water is because she must be close to a water source. And it turns out to be true. He didn’t want to use the precious resources
he had to send her water when she was so close to it already. And she finds water and ends up being
okay. By the way, the movie does not do
a good job of portraying scene, that I thought was so powerful.

Unlike
Haymitch who was limited by how much he could help Katniss, we have a God of
unlimited resources. In fact we have a God who is our source of satisfying our
spiritual thirsts and hungers. The only question is…are you seeking after
him? Are seeking after
righteousness? Are you hungry for
justice to be done in this world? Do you
thirst after being more like God so that you can overcome the forces of
wickedness in this world? Just like in the world of the Hunger Games, there is
evil in this world…what are you doing about it? Are you a beacon of hope and
life and truth and justice and faith…or are you a contributor to the evils? We have a God who desires to overcome the
evils in this with love, with forgiveness, with joy, with hope, with grace,
with mercy…how are you doing with those things?

May
we be the kind of people that thirst and hunger after God so that we can make a
difference in this world. Katniss
becomes a symbol of hope. Jesus is our
symbol of hope…are you pointing people to him?

Like all good movies
this is primarily a movie about relationships and the tension that is created
when there are misunderstandings and break downs in communication. It’s a movie about judging a book by its
cover and the assumptions that we often believe about something we don’t
understand whether those assumptions are true or not. It’s a movie about the fight against
ignorance and the challenges that arise when someone tries to bring knowledge
and understanding into a long tradition of ignorantly believed assumptions. It’s a movie about a father and a son. It’s a movie about brokenness and about the
connection created between two living beings that share the same weakness. And you thought it was about dragons and
Vikings.

The main character is
Hiccup. He’s a scrawny, nerdy, clumsy
teenage Viking who wants to fight dragons.
He’s not the dragon slaying type, he’s caring and inventive so he doesn’t
fit the mold of a dragon slayer. His
macho, alpha male dad, Stoik the Vast, will not let him join the fight. The reason they have to fight the dragons is
that the town is periodically raided by dragons. In this town the dragon slayers are the
professional athletes, the movie stars, the celebrities who everyone aspires to
be like. And Hiccup just doesn’t fit the
bill.

Hiccup ends up
capturing a dragon that had never been captured called a Night Fury. He captures it with one of his inventions and
he secretly visits the dragon to slay it.
What he discovers is that the dragon is injured and instead of killing
the dragon he ends up befriending the dragon and it becomes almost like his
pet. Hiccup names the dragon
Toothless. Toothless is a bit unpredictable,
and one second he’s nice and happy and the next he’s scary and could bite your
head off. He is however manipulated
through treats.

So this secret and
subversive relationship develops between Hiccup and toothless. And Hiccup ends up creating an invention that
helps toothless fly again and even allows him to ride the dragon. And through all of this Hiccup learns about
what dragons like and what they don’t like and it ends up being valuable to
him. His dad signs him up for dragon
training where he gets to learn to fight dragons. Instead he becomes like a dragon
whisperer…using the tools he’s learned from toothless to tame the dragons
instead of slaying them. This all comes
to a head when he is the top trainee in his class and has the honor of fighting
and slaying a big, furious dragon in front of the entire town.

Just
in case you haven’t seen the movie I will not ruin the ending for you, just
know it’s a great ending. There are
several themes in this movie I want us to look at this morning that I believe
are close to the heart of God.

I want to use this
movie as a platform to talk about assumptions that we make, in particular
regarding two issues. First, I want to
talk about the assumptions that some of us make that lead to racism. For me, the most obvious issue that this
movie addresses, whether intentionally or not, is racism. Racism is a sin of pride and arrogance. It’s the idea that I’m better than you simply
because of the color of the skin that I was born into. You did not choose to have the color of skin
that you have. And racism claims that
something a we cannot choose determines a person’s value, a person’s worth. And it is a sin and it is still prevalent in
our community, in our state and in our country.

If you are racist, if
you are prejudiced, you shouldn’t like Jesus very much, because he was not the
white, blonde hair, blue eyed, Swedish looking pretty boy that some pictures
show him to be. He was from the middle
east, he was arab…he had dark skin and dark brown eyes and dark brown
hair.

If you are racist you
shouldn’t like the Bible very much. Because it says things like this: “In
truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever
fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.” (Acts 10:28,34-35).

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28).

If you are racist, you
will not like heaven very much. Because
the bible says this: “After this I looked, and there before me was a great
multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and
language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were
wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” (Revelation
7:9)

If you are racist, you
need to work on that. And the way to
work on that is to choose to get to know someone you are racist against. A person’s character is what dictates the kind
of person they are, not the color of their skin. In the movie it takes hiccup and toothless
understanding each other to break down the false assumptions that had
existed. There’s a great line in the
movie where hiccup says about the dragons:
“everything we knew about you…is wrong.”
Assumptions were made about the dragons that end up not being true in
the end.

Racism often stems from
assumptions towards a specific race that aren’t true about every person of that
color. There are good people in the
world and there are bad people in the world and skin color is not an indicator
of which is which. When you
automatically assume that you are superior and someone else is inferior, you
are playing God and there is only one God.
You also make God out to be a liar because God created us all in His
image. White, black, brown, red…all the
colors of human beings were created in the image of God. If you think someone is less than you because
of their race, you make God out to be a liar…and that’s dangerous. That could have eternal repercussions. We need to be careful about the assumptions
that we make about other people.

The other place we see
assumptions affecting the characters in the movie is in the relationship
between the father and the son. Hiccup and his father love each other but they
don’t know how to talk to each other.
They aren’t totally honest with each other and are sort of talking past
each other using very few words.

The father has
expectations for the son that are all about his own pride and arrogance and
agenda. And the expectations are unfair
for his son. You get the sense that this
big manly Viking named Stoik wishes he would have had a son that wasn’t so
gangly and clumsy and different from the rest of the teenagers in town.

By
the end of the movie the relationship has improved and the gifts that Hiccup
does have are appreciated by the father.
It’s a reminder to all of us as parents to be careful about the
expectations we have on our children.
Are the things we are pushing our opinions and our agendas or are they
about allowing our children to cultivate their gifts that God has given them
that may be different than what we as parents had hoped for for our children.

The
bottom line is that we need to spend time with our children and communicate our
love and affection for them. And there’s
this idea in our society that to be a man means you don’t show your love and
that’s hogwash. If you want to be a man,
a real man, you show your love and kiss and hug and cuddle your children. They need that affection from you as a
man. Whether you have daughters or
sons…those children need you men not just to tell them you love them but to show
them you love them. Take time to be
dad…a dad that is not afraid to let your children know they are loved. Our model for that kind of dad, that kind of
father is God. And when you think about
verses like 1 John 3 you can’t help but think that this is the kind of father
we should strive to be: “See what great love the Father has lavished on
us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

It’s
easy to assume my children know I love them.
What if God had done that? What
if God had just said I’m going to just assume that the people I created know I
love them and I’m going to do nothing to show it. He would not have sent Jesus as a
demonstration of his love for us. Dad’s,
don’t be afraid to show your sons and daughters that you love them, God is the
example of the kind of love that we should have for our children. When you show them you love them you are
participating in the kind of love that God showed us. You can be manly and affectionate, in fact,
most women, most wives, will tell you that showing affection towards them and
towards their children actually makes you more manly. Don’t just assume the people you love know
you love them, tell them and show them.

Assumptions
can be insulting and can get us in trouble.
A married couple brought their 1 year old daughter to their parents to
stay for a couple of nights. They had
forgotten to bring diapers so after dropping off their daughter they went to
the store to buy diapers. They got to
the store and asked one of the employees, “where do you keep the diapers?” The lady looked at them and said “aisle 24.” When the couple got to aisle 24 they found
shelves full of adult diapers. The
employee assumed that sense they didn’t have a baby with them that they were
asking for adult diapers.

Whether it’s in how we
view someone of a different skin color or in assuming that because we love our
children, or assuming because we love our wife they know we love them. The people we love don’t know we love them
unless we tell them and show them. Let’s
be the kind of people that keep our assumptions in check so that we can honor
God with the way we live our lives.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Will this time of worship have been your
first this week…or your last? Let me
rephrase the question just to make sure you get it. Is worshipping this morning a continuation of
a life of worship you have lived this week so that this is another day of
worshipping God for you or is worshipping this morning the first time you have
worshipped all week long.

We have this skewed notion that worship
is something that happens just on Sunday morning. Maybe it’s the church’s fault, maybe it’s
pastors faults for not teaching a more complete biblical understanding of
worship, maybe it’s the fault is that of most Christians…whatever the case, to
relegate worship to something that just happens on Sunday morning is heresy. Yes…it is heresy. Now I hope worship happens on Sunday morning,
but I also hope that you are a living a life of worshipping God.

Let me put it to you this way. I love my wife and I think spending time
together is important for our relationship.
So I only spend one hour, one day a week with her. I want the relationship to grow and be
healthy and I’m committed to her I’m considered a married man and so I give her
one hour a week once a week. Because
that’s how important she is in my life. That’s
ridiculous right. That marriage if it
lasted would not be a very good marriage.

That’s how we treat worshipping God. We are “committed Christians” trying to live
life in a way that honors God and yet the only time we ever give Him to work on
our faith and worship him is one hour on Sunday mornings. I’m sorry, if you go to Sunday School it’s 2
hours on Sunday morning.

If we treated our marriages like we
treat our worship to God, our marriages would fall apart. And some of you wonder why you struggle with
resisting temptation and making good decisions and feeling the presence of God
and knowing the purpose God has for you on this earth. Maybe if you worshipped him more than just
once a week, maybe if you actually spent time in the word and in prayer, maybe
if you actually made an intentional commitment to work on your relationship
with God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit some of those
things you wrestle with would be resolved.
You want to live the abundant life that Jesus promised, you want joy,
you want hope, you want to feel God’s presence in your life…you have got to
make worship a lifestyle, you’ve got to be deliberate in worshipping God daily
and not just on Sunday mornings.

Lets take a look together at what
worship looks like from the book of Isaiah.
To keep worship simple here’s the answer to the question: what is
worship? Worship is simply revelation
and response. The Revelation of who God
is and our response to that revelation.
So that the more we get who God is the bigger and better our response. When we realize God is the creator of
everything and holy and good and just and in charge of everything that happens
in this world…when our revelation of who God is is as big as it should be…our
response will be to worship him daily and live for him daily and make good
decisions and do the things that honor him.
We see this truth that worship is revelation and response clearly in
Isaiah’s calling found in Isaiah 6:1-8. See if you can pick out the ways the author
offers the revelation of who God is and the response of Isaiah:

There is so much imagery in this
text about the revelation of who God is.
Did you notice it? He see’s the
Lord and here’s the description. Here’s
the revelation of who God is.

-High and exalted: God is above and over
everything. His placement in the temple
is an illustration of who is on the earth. He is the God most High...in Hebrew he is el
elyon.

I
will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise
to the name of the LORD Most High -(Psalm 7:17).

You,
O LORD, are the Most High over all the earth; you are exalted far
above all gods -(Psalm
97:9).

In
Zechariah’s song we see a reference to God being the most high:

And
you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go
on before the Lord to prepare the way for him -(Luke 1:76).

-Seated on a throne

The Lord is
in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne. He
observes everyone on earth; his eyes examine them. -Psalm 11:4

16 Let
us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we
may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. -Hebrews 4:16

-The train of his robe
filled the temple

The Lord reigns,
he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed in majesty and
armed with strength; indeed, the world is established, firm and secure. -Psalm 93:1

This idea of the robe is about his
majesty and priestliness…again holiness.
His robe is not limited by time and space…it fills the entire
temple. And again, the temple is where
the presence of God dwells and by extension the imagery here is that this earth
is in a sense his temple. And his robe
is his presence. So the big word here is
that God is omnipresent. He is
everywhere at once.

After
the Israelites flee Egypt and cross the Red sea part of they’re song in Exodus
15 is this.

Who
among the gods
is like you, Lord?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?

-Exodus
15:11

Over
and over again in scripture we see this idea of holiness and glory and majesty
about who God is.

-The place was filled
with smoke and it trembled

In
Exodus 19 we see smoke and the trembling of the land when God’s presence is
there…Moses has obeyed God and called the Israelites to approach Mt. Sinai and
it says this:

18 Mount
Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it
in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and
the whole mountain trembled violently.

There are several other areas
throughout scripture where we see fire and smoke and the earth shaking as the
presence of God descends.

All of these images are deeply
biblical and would have been familiar to the Jewish readers of the book of
Isaiah. They would have known that the
point of the author was to bring about revelation of who God is. He is king – on a throne – he is holy – the
Seraphim sing of that – he sees and knows everything – the train of his robe
fills the temple just as his presence fills the earth.

Isaiah gets quite the grandiose revelation
of who God is doesn’t he? Did you notice
his response? He recognizes right away
the bigness and holiness and glory of God and the first thing he notices when
this is revealed to him is his own humanity.
His own weakness. His own
sin. “Woe to me, I am ruined for I am a
man of unclean lips and I live among people who are unclean.” The revelation of who God is creates a humble
response in Isaiah of unworthiness.

And so God sends the Seraphim, this
angel like creature with a hot coal from the altar puts it on the lips of
Isaiah and makes him clean. Once again
the revelation of who God is…is a God who cares about his people. He does for us what we can’t do for
ourselves. Isaiah could not get clean
before God on his own, only God could make him clean. And once he is clean and his sin is atoned
for and forgiven…then God asks not rhetorically, but looking for a sincere
answer…whom shall I send? And Isaiah
after the revelation of who God is and who was and now who is after this
encounter says with confident humility – Here I am, send me.” The revelation of who God is makes Isaiah
response to the call on his life a resounding here I am send me.

Now, we can’t normalize this worship
experience can we? I mean how many of
you have ever seen seraphim or been touched on the lips by a hot coal from the
altar of the Lord himself. Right. This is not a typical worship scenario at
Catawba Methodist or at any other church around the world. However, it is a perfect example of
revelation and response.

If you view God as big and holy and
grand and majestic as this scripture paints him to be, I have a feeling that
your response will be much bigger than it has been.

In Matthew 15 Jesus quotes Isaiah in
reference to the Pharisees and says

This people honors me with their
lips,
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.
(Matthew
15:8–9)

The Pharisees problem was not their
desire to please God and fulfill the law…they had good motives most of
them. Their problem was that their
revelation of who God was started with the law and not with love. So that their worship to God was in
vain. They honored God with their lips
but their hearts were far from him. When
you were singing this morning, was your heart far from God or were you really
worshipping him?

Were you thinking about what you
have to do this week or about how you don’t like this song or about the haircut
of the person in front of you? Or were
you really worshipping Jesus and thinking about what a friend you have in Him
and how thankful you are for the things God has done for you and so to God be
the glory in everything?

Worship is revelation and
response. The deeper and bigger and more
consistent you are in pursuing the revelation of who God is, the bigger and
deeper and greater your response will be.
And for those of you who are parents of children still living in your
house…the greater your revelation of who God is, the greater their revelation of
who God is. You want your children to
live a life responding to the call of who God on their lives. You want your children live a life that
honors God. It starts with you living it
out in your home and worshipping God in your home. Do you pray together as a family? Do you do family devotions together? Do you take time to see a sunset or a
beautiful moon and verbally thank God for creating such beauty? Are you revealing God in the way you live
your life to your children…because if you are not you are doing them a great
disservice. It is your responsibility as
a parent to instill faith in your children…it is not the church’s job to do
that. The Church should come along
beside you and support you and be a part of your child’s growth in their faith…but
it starts with what you do and don’t do in the home because your influence is
everyday, the church typically gets one day a week.

Worship is revelation and response
that has to be practiced more than just on Sunday mornings. Amen.

About Me

I serve as lead pastor of Covenant Community Church located in Asheville, NC. I am surrounded by a talented staff who make leading fun and exciting.
I'm married to a woman who has the most natural and genuine interest in people's lives of anyone I've ever known.
I get to father two beautiful daughters who make me laugh almost everyday.
In the little bit of me time I have I enjoy playing video games (especially Dota 2), watching movies, cheering on the Panthers (even when they were 1-16), playing tennis, basketball and eating at Chic-fil-a (seriously, I think its my favorite restaurant).